Lechoń. Rycerz i faun

Following his biography of Kazimierz Wierzyński, Wierzyński. Sens ponad klęską [Wierzyński: Meaning Beyond Defeat], Wencel has written a book about Jan Lechoń (1899–1956), arguably the pre-eminent Polish poet of the twentieth century. The cover features Jacek Malczewski’s painting Knight and Faun (1909). It is also the title of the book, and a superb allegory of Lechoń’s life: the two faces of a bifurcated man; a warrior and advocate for a free Poland who fears being held responsible for his words, and a buffoon who seeks escape in carnal pleasures.

Lechoń was a child prodigy. As a boy, he read everything he could find in his family library: mostly poetry by Mickiewicz and Słowacki, and plays by Wyspiański. At the age of six, inspired by the events of the 1905 Revolution, he wrote a poem titled “God Save Poland”. At twelve he authored his first volume of poetry. He penned the first poem published in the 1920 collection The Crimson Poem at seventeen. Lechoń was hailed as the greatest literary phenomenon of post-independence Poland. The price of his success was deteriorating health: he began to suffer from psychasthenia, the crippling fear of never being able to write another poem. This was followed by suicide attempts, psychotherapy and a change of setting. He got better. He wrote satirical political sketches, frequented the Ziemiańska café, and became increasingly involved in politics. During his stint as a diplomat (1930–1940), Lechoń rubbed elbows with the leading figures of Paris’s intellectual circles. France’s military defeat and the poet’s subsequent emigration returned him, paradoxically, to the world of literature.

Armed with knowledge and empathy, Wencel guides us through the labyrinth of Lechoń’s life and work. He does not gloss over the ups and downs of the poet’s dramatic life, which ended in suicide in New York. Though he analyses dozens of poems, essays, speeches, letters and diary entries, he never bores the reader. Written in beautiful, lucid Polish, the book is a pleasure to read in a single sitting.